The girls and I had been playing cards last night, a marathon of Go Fish and Uno, and I sent them to get ready for bed at about 8:10. Katy sat back down on our bed and spilled her guts. She had forgotten to finish a project over the weekend, saw the teacher's reaction to another student who also did not finish the project, and was scared and embarrassed at the thought of receiving the same reaction in fron of the entire class. The next morning it would be her turn to describe her project and turn it in. She had not finished the hot list (which sounds like a reference page) and had yet to develop a game to go along with the research topic (turns out there is a software program that will build a crossword or word find puzzle if you enter in the questions and answers - who knew?).
Apparently, there was a substitute for most of last week for this particular teacher and the substitute did not instruct the class to work on the project. I asked about the teacher's reaction to the student who also did not finish the project and she described it through tears.
Part of me wanted to be the Momma Bear and say it wasn't fair, that expecting 10-11 year old children to keep track of the deadline for project during a weeklong absence of their teacher and to take the initiative to complete it outside of class was a bit much. I wanted to berate the teacher for leaving insufficient lesson plans for the substitute, who according to Katy told the students just read each day in this class. That surely if these children are expected to finish the project on their own that the substitute could have provided this message to the students and even supervised their work. I had to think of the bigger picture, that this was Katy's interpretation of what happened and not necessarily the whole truth.
It was time to take a step back, take a deep breath and get Katy to stop sobbing so that we could have a conversation. It went something like this.
It is true that it is your responsibility to finish your school work. You know what reaction the teacher had today to a student who had not completed the project and you can probably expect about the same reaction tomorrow. [it's okay, take a deep breath, have a kleenex and a drink of water]
Let's make a plan. How are you going to complete the project tomorrow?
She said that she could work on the project during recess and that if she talked to the band teacher that she could work on it instead of going to band. Okay, if you have not completed the project by the end of the school day, stay after school to finish it and send Dad a text message asking him to pick you up later. [no, no, I promise he won't be mad, I'll talk to him] This snowballed into Katy saying that she likes band and honor choir but maybe she shouldn't go to them so that she could have study hall instead.
Okay, one thing at a time. You have to be honest and up front with this teacher. Tell her that you have not completed the project and explain your plan to complete it today. If she has the same reaction to you as it sounds like she did to another student, remain calm and agree with her that yes, it was ultimately your responsibility to complete the project.
Then she asked what if she cries and everyone sees her. [broke my heart a little so I had to get gross for perspective] Well, you are going to walk into the classroom and talk to the teacher right away. It's not like you are going to stand up in front of everyone and vomit, you aren't going to have explosive diarrhea or something nasty like that. [she laughs through her tears and gives me a 'oh Mom that's just gross'] Yeah, see, it could be a lot worse.
You are going to cry, big deal. You are worried about how this is all going to work out and it's okay to let emotion out by crying. Then I got to her level and quoted Taylor Swift (genius on my part!). How does the song go? "You'll do greater things in your life than date a boy on the football team." Honey, you are going to screw up so much bigger in your life than not finishing a project on time. You are going to run into things with your first car [she laughs], you are going to screw up big time at some point in your life. Let's learn the lesson and move on.
The class starts at 10:30, I'll be watching the clock and hoping that it goes well.
